


friend of a friend

by birbteef



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Drabble, Eating, First Meetings, Gen, Slice of Life, Swearing, inaccurate depictions of small town life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 15:32:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13837722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birbteef/pseuds/birbteef
Summary: After everything that happened at Garrus 9, Verity was left back on Earth with nothing. No friend, no job, no home. She makes do until she realizes maybe someone is there after all.





	friend of a friend

**Author's Note:**

> Got balls of steel, got an automobile, for a minimum wage  
> Got real estate, I'm buying it all up in outerspace  
> Now that the truth is just a rule that you can bend  
> You crack the whip, shape-shift and trick, the past again

The wind was a terrible bitter chill around her as it blew past. It wasn’t the harshest she’d ever felt, it wasn’t even the harshest of the season, but it did chill her to the core as she kept walking “home”. She had no home, not in the real sense of it. 

How could she just go back to trying to live a normal life when she’d never lived a normal life in the first place. The ice under her feet cracked and shifted as she kept walking to the small garage apartment. In a better world maybe someone would have thought to give her some funds at least, after everything she’d been through with the Autobots and Wreckers and she still found herself having to resort to last ditch efforts to get by. She wasn’t pickpocketing again, she’d managed to get a shitty waitressing job that didn’t pay her a living wage and she felt like she was selling her soul for tips. But it was money. And more importantly, money paid for the terrible garage apartment she was staying in. 

She slid her key into the door and twisted it as she broke off some ice from the handle. Home sweet home. She looked over her shoulder at the greying sunset. Magnus had asked her to return to a normal life but how could she possibly return to this every single day knowing the things she knew? A cop car pulled up to her neighbors house and sat there on idle. She didn’t think much of it and shut the door. 

Dinner was an off-brand version of canned pasta and a granola bar she’d been saving. Water from the tap tasted funny and unlike something that should be drank, but she did regardless. 

The next morning came harsh and loud with an alarm. Breakfast was skipped and she left in the clothes she slept in. The cop car was gone, but a new one was seated two houses down on the other side. She frowned slightly, that was...weird. The neighborhood wasn’t exactly great but it also wasn’t terrible. She was in the middle of bumfuck nowhere Alaska, it wasn’t like there was a ton of petty crime going on. There were 4000 people in town on a good day, so why was there a cop on this street?

She slung her bag over her shoulder and grumbled about it to herself as she locked the door. She hadn’t done anything illegal in at least a month, surely they wouldn’t be after her. She didn’t even have a car at the moment. As she walked to work she checked behind her every so often, nothing was there so she didn’t know what she was looking for. What kind of paranoia was she having?

Work itself was usual. Her morning shift at the diner left her with the afternoon open, but she couldn’t imagine herself doing anything besides just going back home and sleeping or watching something on tv. 

The cop car was there as she exited the back of the diner. She didn’t know how she knew it was the same one, but she did. It wasn’t close to the diner, rather it was parked in the next parking lot over, but the presence couldn’t be ignored any longer. 

Was it one of them? How long had she been watched? She stomped over to the car and glared at it, starting to feel silly. “You’re terrible at hiding,” she said, feeling as though she were talking to nothing. “I know you’ve been following me!” her voice started to raise with mild anger. “Who put you up to it? Magnus? Springer?”

One of the doors popped open and perhaps foolishly she didn’t hesitate to climb inside. It backed out of the parking lot and started to drive, she noticed it was headed in the direction of her apartment but didn’t mention it. “You’ve already blown your cover you might as well answer me.”

“Magnus.” Came a tired young man’s voice. “I am a duly appointed Deputy of the Tyrest Accord, My name is Stakeout, and it has been my job to monitor you. I...I don’t wish to cause you any alarm about that.”

“None caused.” she groaned. Of course it would be Ultra Magnus sending someone to watch her. “I wouldn’t be angry at you anyway, I’m sure it wasn’t your first choice to get stationed here to watch me.”

He gave a solid little laugh at that, “No, maybe not. I’m not hating it as much as I thought I would be though. No one’s shot at me in nearly a month. That’s going on a personal record.”

Verity just rolled her eyes in response. “So, lemme guess, you’re not actually supposed to be keeping direct contact with me and you’re gonna go back into hiding as soon as I go home?”

Stakeout was quiet for a moment as he thought about the question. “No, I don’t think I’d like to. Your winter season is approaching and you still haven’t acquired yourself a vehicle. This far north that’s a very dangerous gamble to take. In my file it says you are from Arizona, a desert climate, so I can understand your confusion.”

“Im not confused about the winter.” she growled. “I know what winter is. Im asking you if youre just gonna pretend this never happened and go back to stalking me.”

“I’d...rather not. I can just be with you.” he put on his breaks for a stop sign. “My mission was to keep you from knowing I was here at all but since I failed, there’s not really a point to hiding from you is there?”

She shrugged. It was nice to be in a warm car not having to walk home from work. Maybe this would mean a ride every day? How nice that would be. She meant to get herself a car, nothing nice or fancy but something that would do just well enough to get her around this shithole town. Most of her money went to her outrageous rent though, and for some reason she was starting to feel ill some mornings, so a car had been pushed to the backburner. 

The silence between them was oddly comfortable. Verity thought maybe she should be more upset about this but if anything she was glad to know she hadn’t been abandoned. Preferably Springer or maybe Magnus himself would have at least visited or told her what was going to happen, but after everything just knowing she was being thought of was...comforting. 

The apartment approached on the left, and she started to gather her things in the backseat and then watched as it was completely passed. “You’ve been watching me for how long now and you miss my home?” she asked incredulously.

“That’s not our first stop. Im taking you to the old barracks so we can actually meet.”

“That would have been nice to know before.” she grumbled. “I haven’t really eaten today.”

He didn’t have much of a response to that. After a moment he asked, “Do you have local currency?”

“Not really.”

“Then...hang on. I guess.” There was a zap and a flick of static and suddenly, just like always with these robots, there was a holoform in the front seat. Verity really only saw him from the back, but she guessed he was either latino or native, young, and tired looking in a cop uniform. 

There wasn’t really fast food in Nome. There was a subway but that didn’t really count in the same way as most food, and regardless it was on the other side of the tiny town. He pulled up to a takeaway chinese place without her and had the audacity to just leave without asking what she wanted. She watched the holoform walk inside and bemoaned being left here. 

The police scanner screen flicked on with a visual of whatever was on the menu, likely what the holoform was seeing. “Oh so you’re actually going to let me eat something?”

Stakeout’s confusion was nearly audible. “Yes? I have no plan of starving you. You don’t have money and I do, so Im getting food.”

“General Tso’s with rice and an eggroll, what do you mean you have money?”

“I do get paid for being a Deputy of the Law. It doesn’t pay well but it’s certainly enough to feed you once or twice.”

“That’s not really how earth money works, your money system isn’t even real it’s all fake numbers that exist in the internet. You can’t even touch your money.”

“It’s real enough to get you something to eat. Credit works all the same whether you can touch it or not. You even make it easy by having little plastic cards that take it out automatically.”

She rolled her eyes, there was no use fighting about him getting her food. If she made too much of a stink she suspected he wouldn’t buy her any more, and that was a fate she wasn’t going to risk. 

When the holoform came back he opened the back door, handed her the food, and then vanished in a stream of static. As they pulled out of the parking lot Verity started to stuff her face, careful not to drop any of it on him. “Why are we going to some barracks?” she asked once she had her mouth free again.

“I can be sure there are no other humans there. I’d like to actually see you rather than just rely on what my alt scanners tell me you look like.”

She frowned with the realization he probably hadn’t transformed in a month. “Well, I guess It’ll be good to see you too.” she said before shoving another piece of chicken into her mouth.

The further from town they travelled the worse the road conditions became. Stakeout seemed to have no problem but Verity was starting to get nervous. She knew she wouldn’t have been able to drive like this, but she had some trust in a Cybertronians ability to navigate rough terrain. He pulled over into a seemingly random area and opened the door to let her out. The cold air that rushed in was unwelcome and she shivered but left him regardless, wadding up the empty food containers and taking them with her. 

It didn’t seem like a barracks any more than any other area they had been driving on. “Is this it?” she asked the car.

Stakeout laughed, “no, but we are alone enough I don’t really see the point of going all the way to the barracks. Deserted is deserted, no matter how far out you get.” and with that he seemed to fold in on himself. The recognizable clicking and chugging of a Tcog at work filled the air and he twisted and unfolded up into a Cybertronian. He was rather small by Verity’s standards but she had mostly hung around wreckers and warriors, so she supposed this is maybe what a more average Cybertronian looked like. 

She thought he looked tired, if that was even a thing for them. Like his holoform there was a certain amount of exhaustion he just seemed to exude. 

“Oh it’s red.” he finally said.

She blinked in confusion, “What’s red.”

“Your hat. Lightwave sensors in alt are more directed towards movement, so some things just slip by. It’s a good look.”

She reached a hand up to touch the scrunched beanie she was wearing. He could know her exact location within 200 meters but couldn’t tell what color she was wearing? She smiled, thinking it was funny. “I guess I expected you to look like jazz.”

“Hah!” Stakeout laughed, “Im gonna take a guess you don’t mean that to be insulting. I like my look just fine, thanks.”

She shrugged. “You’re both cop cars. Your alts are practically identical.”

He stretched and started to walk around, bending his joints this way and that to lube them up. “Eh, by your standards maybe. I’ll be sure to pass that along he’ll think it’s a riot.”

She thought about mumbling something about all cops being bastards but kept it to herself, knowing he’d be able to hear it. 

After he was done stretching he took a few laps around the area, running in his root form before folding back down into his alt and opening his door for her again.

“We’re done?” she asked.

“I just wanted to see you and stretch. There’s not much else to do. I’ll take you home now if you want.”

“And If i don’t want?” she asked as she climbed in.

“I’m taking you home anyway.”

**Author's Note:**

> Wow I wrote something that isn't KOBD for once in my life


End file.
